Enemies (MARDEK)/Strategies
This page contains a list of strategies that can be used to defeat various monsters in the MARDEK series. World's Saviours The World's Saviours appear multiple times across the series. Tainted Grotto Notes: It is recommended to be at least level six when you start this battle. It is suggested to use Vehrn rather than Zach, as Bernard is Dark. Mardek's primary role in this boss battle should be healing and restoring statuses; make sure to give him plenty of status restorers, and only if no one needs any healing should he actually attack. Should anyone be KO'd, he should revive them with a Phoenix Down. First off, KO Aalia. She has the least HP, and she's a healer, which means that KOing every else will be significantly more difficult while she's around. Especially if she's given everyone shields. If Emela uses Stonesplosion (you may want to have the Earth Rod equipped), Deugan uses Earth Slash, and Mardek and Vehrn just attack, then she shouldn't last more than a round, maybe two. After you've taken care of Aalia, start attacking Bernard. He's a mage who can deal some damage, but has poor defence and won't last long with everyone attacking him at once. Have Emela use Bubble, Deugan Power Attack, Vehrn Smite Evil, and then have Mardek attack, if no one needs major healing. After Bernard, it's time to take on Vennie. By now, it should be four on two (On the off chance anyone on your side faints, revive them with Phoenix Down), which makes an already weak character easier. He shouldn't take long at all. Have Emela use Flame, Deugan Power Attack, and Vehrn attack. If no one needs healing or status restoration, then you can have Mardek attack. You've now saved Bartholio for last. Since he's on his own, he'll be quite easy to take down. Once you kill his team mates, he'll enter a Berserker Rage similar to Zach's, however this will take a turn, which should give you enough time to KO him before he attacks. Check his stats to find out which spell of Emela's to use, command Deugan to use Power Attack and have Mardek and Vehrn attack. He also shouldn't take long at all. To avoid his berserker rage, you can defeat him before Vennie, though he will take a turn or two more to defeat than Vennie. Vennie on his own should be simple to defeat, even with his status-inflicting attacks. Cambria Arena The World's Saviours, if you're still using Vehrn, are a cakewalk. Just repeat the above strategy and you're fine. Fire Temple The Saviours are significantly stronger now. The problem is they're encountered after the Fire Guardian with no Save Crystals so no healing here. Legion or Meraeador is recommended. Heal your party before leaving the Crystal Room via items or magic. If you have Legion in your party, immediately use Fairy Dust (learned from Rogue Fairies) on the Saviours so most of them will be asleep (Meraeador's Sleep-O-Matic makes a perfect subsitute if you haven't got Fairy Dust). Repeat Fairy Dust or Sleep-O-Matic when any of them wakes up. Pound Aalia with magic attacks while Legion (if you brought him) uses Acid on Bartholio and Vennie until they're numbed. After Aalia is KO'd, pound Bernard but don't use physical attacks - he'll use a reaction called "Heh." that heals himself to full and inflicts Dark damage against the attacker - so have the physical attackers focus on Bartholio instead (unless if they absorb Dark, then Heh. will damage Bernard instead). When Bernard is KO'd, the numbed Bartholio and Vennie shouldn't be of any trouble but be sure Bartholio is KO'd when Vennie is, since when Bartholio enrages, the numbness will wear off. Bringing Gloria can also work, as she can nullify the three elemental attacks that Bernand uses against the entire party. Donovan is of some use by being able to nullify fire attacks, and can use burn against Bartholio and Vennie until they get numbed. Moric (first battle) This fight is long, but not hard. Moric will attack with Mass Stone, an Earth-elemental spell that damages the party, and Drain, a Dark-elemental spell that drains HP from one party member, as well as a physical attack that can deal around 100 damage. Having the Geo Jacket is recommended. Use Deugan's Barrier Break at the start of the battle to dispel Moric's Shield status. (However, since Moric is healed by Dark-elemental skills, do not use the DMG+20% reaction command) Emela's Lightning Bolt spell can deal ~150 damage to him, and if you have Zach, have him use Crescendo Slash and Soulstrike: Air. Deugan's Spiritblade skill is also useful, since Moric is weak to Ether. Mardek should heal the party constantly. Try to let Mardek kill him to compensate for the lack of Exp. Moric (second battle) Moric has extremely powerful attacks that can take out someone (especially Emela) in one hit, so equipping the Geojacket is recommended. However, if someone dies, he will revive them as zombies first before attacking again. You can take advantage of this by equipping characters with a or the Vim passive ability, so they will be freely revived (with full HP). Using Vehrn's Disrupt Undead along with the is recommended, since it deals significant damage to Moric. Qualna This is a solo battle. Qualna has abilities of almost every element. If you have any s, use one immediately to make the battle quicker and easier. Other items like a or are also helpful, but take note that he can also break both of Mardek's shields. It's also a good idea to have Aether resistance to reduce the damage of his strongest attack, Arcane Cataclysm. When low on health he will summon three Aether Clones of Mardek, with all of his equipment and stats, though they can only attack, cast M Shield, Shield, and Heal. A good setup would be to equip Mardek so he is strong against some elements, but weak against others (preferably Natural). This allows you to take advantage of the clones' weaknesses using elemental slashes, though be careful as you'll also be weak to some of Qualna's spells. Do not equip too much resistance on every element, or defeating the clones will take significantly longer or be impossible altogether. By the end of the battle, Qualna will cast Haste on himself, which shouldn't be a problem if Mardek already has Haste. There's another simple strategy: Equip Mardek with the Scarab of Protection, and some items so he can absorb Light. Use Speedy Juice and Healthy Potion or Regen. Use also a Power Drink, which increases your STR by 10. Use only normal attacks on Qualna. When he summons Mardek's Clones, you can easily kill them in 2 attacks by using Slashes. If one of them have a Shield, then your power will be lowered and you will need 3 turns to defeat them. Bone Demon *The Bone Demon can be Berserked, to allow for an "easy" defeat. Make sure everyone is protected by Shield, Astral Form, a , or has high DEF, because the demon will deal double damage (double STR) while Berserked (around 2k damage per hit). *If you've already defeated Annihilator: Karnos, you can take this guy down easy by equipping Vehrn with the and the , and letting him wail for about 5k damage per hit. *Equip Mardek with the Black Hat, Flamemail, FirePendant, and EarthPendant, and put on all of the skills for that equipment. This makes Mardek immune to all fire, earth, and dark attacks, which make up almost all of the demon's attacks. All you need to worry about is his physical slash, which shouldn't deal enough damage to kill you. Heal when he uses it, and attack with Flametongue and Fire Slash. Annihilator:Karnos *Zach's Coup de Grace can be used to great effect if Karnos has cast Rainbow Guard on himself. Because it's a physical attack, it won't cause any elemental shifts, and so if you can get Karnos to stick with an element that you have a Null spell for, you can use the rest of the party to maintain health/shield levels while Zach wails away. *Another useful tactic is to have Mardek consume three or four s, which will increase his STR exponentionally. Then, when Karnos switches to one of the Natural Elements, use one of Mardek's corresponding Elemental Slashes to deal extra damage; you should do around 5000 damage each time. *Alternately, equip Mardek with the , , and the , and use other party members (if necessary) to shift Karnos to Light. Then, Mardek will heal himself to full with every strike, and will be healed by Dark Claw and Blood Claw. The other party members are now irrelevant. You can bring them back in the end for the experience... but they're otherwise useless. Also, it seems that Karnos will preferentially target Mardek with Shatterclaw, taking some of the heat away from the other members... not that you should care about them anyway. *A rather simple way of buying you enough time to figure out whatever you want to do is to bring along Mardek and Gloria and have the former cast his Morality Block on all, and the latter casting her Null Air/Earth/Fire/Water Once on all as the situation dictates. This will block all damage except for Aether and Fig, which alone shouldn't provide too much difficulty to survive. *Putting the on Mardek is a great way to double the damage he deals or let him put up twice as many buffs. The and the will give equipped characters a Shield or M Shield respectively that cannot be removed with Shatterclaw. Annihilator:Animus *One strategy for defeating this extra boss is to use Gloria's Whirlpool or Legion's Fairy Dust to reduce his SPR down to 0. Then he can't ever kill you with Ion Storm, or the Energy Vortexes. If you use this strategy, be careful of Mega Barrier, which is used when he's at low health, as he gains 5 SPR (and 5 MDEF and 5 DEF), as you'll need to Whirlpool or Fairy Dust again, but to prevent this, try using Morality Block (It will nullfy mega barrier, since its light-elemental). *The Soulstorm moves are dependent on your current HP, and are Aether elemental. If you have at least 20% Aether resistance (or have -20% Damage reduction for Magical Defence Reactions), you can always survive Soulstorm Omega. *You can kill him with Mardek by just attacking. If you have Legion, you can have him Berserk Mardek with Rage Chord to make it go faster, and you can lower Animus' DEF with Acid. You can also attack with Fig-elemental Gemsplosion (with a Candriathope equipped), which is the only spell from which Animus takes double damage. Elwyen can use Ballad of Balance when the spells still do damage, and can deal damage with Dolorous Dirge, or support your damage dealer with Spirit Song (for Gloria) or Vigorous March (for Mardek). If you bring Solaar, xyr Spirit Graft can be quite useful to counter Ion Storm's SPR loss. Donovan can support Mardek with Strength Boost, and lower Animus' DEF with Burn. Sslen'ck can function as another attacker and lower Animus' DEF with Perforate. Sharla can support with heals. *One of the simplest strategies is to bring Solaar, Elwyen, and another healer. If Solaar uses Spirit Graft on Elwyen until she has 100 SPR, and she uses Runic Rhapsody, Animus can't damage you at all. Be careful of Ion Storm, as it reduces SPR. At that point, it doesn't matter what you do. The only difficult part of this strategy is surviving until then, but if Mardek and the fourth character both eschew dealing damage to keep your team alive, it becomes trivial. *Mardek can also solo this boss, as long as he has enough elemental resists, from items like the Rainbow Disc, and passives like Rainbow Aura Lv. 1 and Resist AETHER. With the Scarab of Fury from Annihilator:Karnos, he can deal a lot of damage too. However, a rare Energy Vortex of the wrong element (Thauma) can be deadly. Delay Buster can be absorbed with the Magic Reaction passive, M AIR-50% on top of the Rainbow Disc (40%), LesserRainbowShirt (10%), and Rainbow Aura Lv. 1 (20%). *Another easy way to defeat Animus is to have Mardek, Elwyen, and anyone else who can equip light armour in your party. Then, give all 4 characters Astral Wanderer's Garbs (50% Aether Resistance. All of the components to make one are trivial to obtain and abundant, so crafting even 4 of them shouldn't be a problem), and have them equip Resist AETHER, which comes with the Garb (another 50% Aether Resistance, adding to 100%). Make sure to get Ballad of Balance skill for Elwyen from Goznor's secret shop, and have her play it for the entire battle. That's it, you're done - most of Animus's attacks are aether element, and are completely harmless - and the energy vortexes only target one character at a time, and can't kill you while the Ballad of Balance is playing! Just don't give anyone Haste, Shield or M. Shield, so you don't have to deal with Delay Buster or Shield Breaker: Annihilation, which would damage all characters at once. *A useful skill for Mardek to have in this fight is Quarry: SPIRIT, which will raise the damage Mardek does to Animus by 50%. *Interestingly, Animus' Delay Buster, which usually works to prevent the player from using haste to supercharge the party, can actually make this battle easier. Bring along Gloria or Sharla with Null Air Once, and cast it on the whole party at the start of the battle. Then haste the party using Speedy Juice, either individually or with Mereador's Potion Spray. This not only allows you to nearly double your party's turns (nearly because you have to refresh Null Air each time Animus uses Delay Buster), it also makes Animus waste about 1/4 of its turns using an attack that doesn't hurt you. Category:MARDEK Monsters